00:00For the younger Buddhists, sometimes scripture is scripture, modern living is modern living.
00:08They find it very hard to reconcile the two. Buddhism is a bit more sedated. It's like wine,
00:14it becomes purer with age and experience. I was from like a not-Buddhist family. We were like,
00:24you know, normal Chinese Taoist family, and then we went to our bye-bye. We have an altar at home,
00:30and our parents would offer their joysticks. So this is the kind of like family we grew up in.
00:37When I was in primary school, one of our uncles had an accident, and my dad was really worried,
00:45so he would be offering joysticks to the deity hourly to ask that the uncle might live through
00:51this incident. So unfortunately, he did not, and I think after a few years,
00:59grandfather passed away. After that, then I think the family kind of got a bit of religious.
01:05The point where I started was in secondary school. In our generation, we have something called religious
01:11knowledge, RK. It was an O-level subject, so we chose, I chose, I chose Buddhism, the easiest,
01:18something I'm most familiar with. It was just small theory. The teachers teaching then,
01:24I suspect they should be Buddhists, but they were just going through the materials as well.
01:28After that, I kind of like signed up for a class. I don't know how, I don't know why,
01:35but I just kind of like signed up for a class at the Buddhist lodge. That was when I was just like 15,
01:4216, 16. They had a weekend Saturday class, so prime time for us to go out. But then I went for the class.
01:50The class was in Mandarin, and it was by a China monastic as well. So the accent and the way things
01:58were taught, so like, wow, chim, just one word, chim. So we just tried hard not to fall asleep.
02:04And the classmates were like all more senior people, like 40s, 50s, 60s, very old people.
02:10There I was a kid in the class, just trying to learn as much as possible. There was this,
02:16this whole, you know, there's this void that I was trying to fill, that, you know, is this the real
02:22Buddhism, which is, you know, the real Buddhism rather than the school Buddhism, kind of thing.
02:28So I signed up for it to know more.
02:34I finished O level, went for A levels, and then army. So weekends we can book out, so we can go home.
02:45Sometimes I went, I go to the temple and help out. I wasn't the fittest guy in the platoon and things
02:52like that. There are instances where I find it very difficult to catch up with army training.
02:57Somehow the faith kept me going. I still remember the imagery would be, you know,
03:02like Buddha was just around and, you know, just cheering us on.
03:15My family wasn't well to do. I was like the first one to go to a local college.
03:21I think it was year two, so we had a chance to go for exchange program.
03:26And then me wanting to, you know, go experience life a bit differently. So I signed up for one.
03:34I didn't expect to be picked.
03:35Family was quite happy, but family was a bit stressed because I had to go to the States.
03:40So the exchange rate was what, one to 1.7 kind of thing. The local students would host us for games.
03:48Again, a lot of partying, a lot of clubbing, a lot of food.
03:54I was there for the fall semester. So then there was Halloween, there was Thanksgiving.
04:00Lots of partying. That generation was where the mumbo jumbo thing was going on.
04:05That was also the first time, you know, I came real close to people who are on drugs,
04:11people who sleep around. It sets me thinking, is this really what we want to do?
04:17Finances was one thing. So I couldn't afford to go for too many party sessions.
04:22After finishing assignments, then I would, you know, go read up. And that was where I think
04:29online streaming just started as well. So there were a lot of online videos on
04:35dharma discourses, dharma talks. So I just paid more attention to that and start watching
04:41and knowing more and thinking about life a bit more.
04:43During the early part of uni, I had a lot of internships with press. I was with
04:57Zao Bao, Wan Bao, Xing Ming, all the tablets for a while. As interns as well, they sent us out for
05:05a lot of outside assignments. I also remember very vividly that we were sent for more
05:13military duty every every week. That's also the time where I see a lot of all these accidents,
05:21people dying, theft. After I graduated, I went to a nursing home. I was doing volunteer management,
05:36events management. It was also an excuse, a ruse for me to get my family to get used to the fact that
05:42I wanted to renounce my life. So they had to get used to the half-working, half-philanthropical,
05:49giving up my life kind of lifestyle. It was not conventional. Nobody in my generation became a
05:57monastic. I mean, Chinese family, elder son, been to college. At my generation, going through college,
06:05it's kind of like a big thing. So they were not so willing to let it go. They chose not to talk about
06:11it. They're like, I'm going to brush it under the carpet. My mom was okay because she knows friends
06:17from temple. She has been to temple, so she knows the lifestyle. My dad, not so, not so receptive. He
06:24thinks it's a very harsh kind of lifestyle to go through. He was not really happy about it at all.
06:30He would prefer his son to just go work, get rich, and do something else. When did they really change?
06:37It was after a long while, actually, after I came back from Taiwan. They saw my lifestyle,
06:47and then that's where their views changed, actually.
06:52It was really tough. I was thrown into college immediately after Taunje. So there was no time for
06:58me to get used to the lifestyle. It was really regimental. It was like a BMT all over again.
07:06It was in Taiwan, so the culture is a bit different. Even though I was quite effectively bilingual,
07:11but then the college means everything is in Mandarin. So, wow, lifestyle is very difficult to adapt to.
07:20Language was a bit of a challenge. Cultural kind of thing, how people deal with each other is very
07:26different from what we have in Singapore. So I find it really difficult. And then I was homesick a
07:33little bit. So at that point, in the beginning, I was thinking, oh, wow, should I come back? Should I not
07:38come back? And something, yeah.
07:43Buddhism talks about impermanence, talks about pain, suffering. If we haven't been through that,
07:49it's very difficult to appreciate pain and suffering and impermanence. So sometimes it requires a bit of
07:54age and it requires a bit of life experience. The current youth, the suffering is very different
08:01from the parents' generation. It's more on mental stress, but it's because of this that makes Buddhism
08:08more relevant. Buddhism talks about mental state, how we control our mind, our desire. Buddhism should be
08:16very relevant to the youth of today.
08:23When I first started doing social media, hmm, it was, again, uncharted territory. Everybody was
08:29looking at us, as like the guinea pig kind of thing. If we get flamed, everybody would just
08:35huge, shrink back, kind of thing. I was also apprehensive. I don't know what to do. But then,
08:40I think the environment was a bit more merciful, a bit more forgiving. It was easier to adopt,
08:47I think, at my time. I wouldn't say I'm the pioneer, but then things picked up after I appeared in a few
08:54media. I think everybody starts to look at this a bit differently. It's definitely a way to let people
09:02understand more about the faith. People are not reading books, not reading papers, definitely not
09:09reading scriptures. I think it's the way to go, but how we do is uncharted territory, and the kind of
09:18algorithms that work in TikTok might not work in our favor. It's quite more light-hearted, funny, a lot of
09:26music, dance, and kind of things. For monastic to do that kind of thing, it's not really appropriate.
09:35If we do TikTok video, I hope people give us some leeway or some lags to explore if this
09:42is something where we should do. So this also brings back the point that within the monastic,
09:48we need to draw our own boundary. What can be done, what cannot be done. This has been long overdue.
09:55Our rules are still 2,000 years, you know, 2,000 year old rules. In today's living, I think a lot of
10:03things need to be re-adapted to modern living. In Buddhism, like I said before, impermanence is one
10:09thing. So everything should evolve with age.
10:25Depends on the world.
10:28Depends on time.
10:29Depends on time.
10:31Depends on time.
10:33ć©-
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